Sick in a foreign Country

One of the worst parts of travel is when you get sick abroad. For me, my stomach couldn’t handle any part of India. It’s also struggled occasionally with my all meat diet of Argentina. Christie had her own issues with Argentina and Thailand.

Our biggest scare though was when we flew from Bali to Thailand. My ears were completely stuffed up to the point of landing and taking off in Singapore and landing again in Phuket was pure misery and pain for me. My ears screamed for mercy.

With all the flying I did, I occasionaly had issues not being able to pop my ears, but it was never painful. In this case, my ears screamed in pain and everything sounded muffled. It felt like I was wearing a space helmet or I was Charlie Brown when the parents were speaking. I freaked out a bit, this was awful.

I took a few business calls that evening and really struggled to hear them or ensure I was heard, because I could barely hear myself.

I figured after a night of sleep it would go away. Nope, just as bad. I thought maybe I had water in my ears, so I would tilt my head and hope it drained. Nope. After a couple of days it would go away, but it didn't.

I didn’t want us to spend Christie’s birthday at the hospital, so we waited until the next day and went to “tourist clinic” which treats everything from STDs to hangovers to whatever I had (hopefully). The Thai doctor spoke fluent English and examined my ears. She said I had an infection, and prescribed several antibiotics and medicines. She also said at 36 years old I should have kids before its too late.

After 48 hours my infection was gone and ears are good as new!